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Higher Ground
To save yourselves in the present,you’ll need to uncover the secrets of the past Cast * Ellie Maxted * Sam Yao * Jody Marsh Plot Manuscripts You join Jody and Ellie Maxted on a run to Hemelstead Mansion, home of a collector of Dark Age antiquities, in whose collection you hope to find a copy of the Edda of the Wakened Warriors. The Edda is needed to help Veronica explore her theory that the origin of the V-Types lies in a unique fungal growth, and about which the Vikings may have known. Exmoor Jody, Ellie and Sam discuss the state of the ongoing peace conferences, and the likelihood of various factions taking over as leaders of the UK. Jody believes the Exmoor Militia will end up leading the efforts to defend against the V-Types. Bibliotarium You enter Hemelstead Mansion and find the library, after running through a long hall full of stuffed animals. The owner of Hemelstead Mansion was clearly interested in taxidermy. The library’s records reveal that the Edda is not stored in the main library, but in the remote Bibliotarium, on the other side of the mansion. As you leave the Library, you spot a large portrait of the mansion’s owner: Xenobia. Worzel Gummidge As you navigate Xenobia’s mansion in order to reach the Bibliotarium, you encounter a strange zombie, which has been melded with a tree somehow. The twigs growing from its face prevent your headshot from killing it, so you are forced to flee instead. Cockroach-Zombie Escaping the twig-zombie, you enter Xenobia’s lab. What first appears to be a model of a human-cockroach hybrid soon reveals itself to be a real cockroach-zombie hybrid, terrifyingly. You flee, still in search of the Bibliotarium. Grenade Ellie reveals she’s carrying a grenade, which you quickly use to dispatch the Insect-Zombie. Unfortunately, the blast makes the cliff into which the mansion is built unstable. It’s time to run! Mount Seneca Escaping the rock-fall, you finally reach the Bibliotarium to search for the Edda. To Ellie’s dismay, it soon becomes clear that the rock blocking your way is highly toxic, contaminated with Burn Cube residue from the detonation at Mount Seneca, which lay above the tunnels you’re in. The Edda and its vital information are inaccessible. S07E29 // Rofflenet Discussion regarding this mission can be found on Rofflenet Transcript SAM YAO: Right. Hemelstead Mansion is up that winding path ahead of you, unless there are any other giant castles built into the sides of cliffs in the neighborhood. ELLIE MAXTED: It’s fascinating! Who did you say owned it before Z-Day? SAM YAO: Um… no info. Sorry, Ellie. A collector of Dark Age antiquities. JODY MARSH: Also a collector of fragments of the Edda of the Wakened Warrior. SAM YAO: Well, we’re hoping the Edda might help us tackle the V-types, seeing as how, well, you know, the Vikings actually created them. JODY MARSH: Yeah. The first V-types we found were protecting that Viking tomb. They’d been waiting in those dark tunnels for hundreds of years until we came and woke them up. ELLIE MAXTED: That’s why I’ve been researching the Edda. I went to work with Colonel Sage because his people have maintained good libraries. Anyway, he said Veronica said it was okay to let me in on the secret about… what she is now. Is it me, or does it feel really weird? SAM YAO: It does take some getting used to. Has some advantages, though. Ronnie collated your Edda research in about two seconds. She thinks she’s reconstructed the whole thing. Except for three stanzas. JODY MARSH: But those stanzas are about how the wizard Loki laid the zombie guards back to rest. In other words, the part we actually need. SAM YAO: Yeah. Veronica thinks that this is a good lead because she has that theory that the V-types might be animated by some kind of fungus which could have been dormant for a long time, so whatever the Vikings knew might still be relevant. ELLIE MAXTED: Didn’t she see murals about that inside the Viking tombs? SAM YAO: Well, yeah. Except when she saved Five and Maxine, she blew up a lot of memory along with her labs. She reckons there was probably stuff in there that might be relevant to this, but that she hadn’t prioritized. ELLIE MAXTED: So we need to find the actual manuscript here in Hemelstead Mansion. Come on, I’m itching to get my fingers on those manuscripts! JODY MARSH: Wow, this path is a lot longer than it looked from below. ELLIE MAXTED: We’re nearly there. And at least no V-types. SAM YAO: Oh! Have I not told you about my jinx rule for runners, Ellie? Talk about something else. Literally anything. ELLIE MAXTED: Um, okay. Uh, I heard the last round of peace conferences were going okay? JODY MARSH: Oh, yeah. Well, ish. I went to a couple for Janine. At least people are talking, but there’s still so much bickering, and we just don’t have time for it. Obviously, Five dealt with the V-types at the necropolis for now, but Veronica’s pretty sure that the horde gets more clever the more of them there are, so we can’t wait for numbers to rise. ELLIE MAXTED: Humans are often pretty good at uniting against a common enemy. JODY MARSH: You’d think. It’s really obvious that if the zoms are cleverer and think as one, we need to be working together, too. Preferably with one township leading the country. SAM YAO: It can’t be Abel. The Ministry’s already spread too much doubt about us. JODY MARSH: Can’t be New Canton and Amelia, obviously. Eagle and Scorpion Fang are too divisive. Psychoanalysts Enclave is too secretive. Hebrides Outpost is too remote. ELLIE MAXTED: Could have been Mount Seneca, I suppose, before they… SAM YAO: Yeah. We sent them some burn cubes for zombie defense, told them they were very volatile. They stored them in a building near the generator, and… sighs Well, you can see the crater from where you are, actually. So that’s more burn cubes gone forever. JODY MARSH: Yeah. We just can’t afford that kind of thing. I think the Exmoor Militia are going to end up leading the V-type efforts, but they’ve made so many enemies that getting agreements is like pulling teeth. ELLIE MAXTED: I think Sage would support it, anyway. He’s all about order. JODY MARSH: We’re at the mansion, Sam. creaks open Seems deserted. Should we just head in? SAM YAO: Yeah. Be quick, though. I didn’t realize how close you were to Mount Seneca. The whole cliff could be unstable. I want you in and out fast. The library’s at the center of the building, straight ahead of you. Run. ELLIE MAXTED: Okay, Sam. We’re in the library. JODY MARSH: After running through the longest hallway of stuffed animals ever. It was like if Noah’s ark employed a taxidermist. I can see surveillance cams. Are you getting anything, Sam? SAM YAO: Not a sausage. Network’s isolated. ELLIE MAXTED: I think I can help with that. If I just fix this breaker to the cam - clicks SAM YAO: Bloody hell! The feed went live. How did you do that? ELLIE MAXTED: Sage got his people to design it. He studied the Abel runner method and looked for ways to refine it. SAM YAO: The Abel runner method? Never thought of us having a method. More sort of a muddling along. ELLIE MAXTED: Oh, it’s all methods and honing techniques and “30 steps to a more efficient run” with Sage. JODY MARSH: Guys, I found something. ELLIE MAXTED: Brilliant! A library index! SAM YAO: laughs I love that that excites you. ELLIE MAXTED: What have we got here? The Book of the Battle of Yahweh, Cardenio, Inventio Fortunata! This is some collection. Ah, here it is! Fragments of the Edda of the Wakened Warrior! It’s not in the main library. Sam, do your plans show a bibliotarium? SAM YAO: Mm, no. Wait, yes. Uh, reached via a tunnel out of the back of the library. It’s built deep into the cliff. JODY MARSH: Secure storage, I guess. SAM YAO: Yeah. The plans don’t look complete, but the entrance is under that huge portrait of – oh. Oh, crap. You recognize her, too, don’t you, Five? JODY MARSH: Well, me and Ellie definitely don’t, so maybe fill us in? SAM YAO: It’s Xenobia, a mad scientist Sara Smith took down before Z-Day. If this was her house, then yeah, you don’t want to hang around. growls Make this fast, guys. Get going. JODY MARSH: Doesn’t seem dangerous. Dank, drippy, but basically just caves. SAM YAO: I’ve still got you on cams. So this is all part of Xenobia’s lair. She was definitely a lair person. JODY MARSH: I read the mission report. She was into genetic experiments, right? Melding things together that should have stayed… unmelded. SAM YAO: She and Doctor Tomorrow would have got on like a house on fire, but Sara definitely killed her. ELLIE MAXTED: She was always efficient. Bit like Sage, really. But I’m glad I’m on this mission with you. Less “follow the method precisely” and more fun. growls SAM YAO: Sorry, but this mission is about to get a lot more unfun. JODY MARSH: Zombie? SAM YAO: Yeah. It came from a tunnel that’s redacted on the floor plan. JODY MARSH: It’s got twigs growing out of it, like a zombie Worzel Gummidge! gunshots ELLIE MAXTED: Nice headshot, Five. roars JODY MARSH: It’s still coming, though. Must be a V-type. ELLIE MAXTED: No, look. The bullets caught in one of the branches. They’re a cage around its decaying face. There’s roots going into its eyeballs. SAM YAO: Either way, if you can’t kill it, you need to get away from it. The left-hand tunnel leads to the bibliotarium. Run! growls JODY MARSH: Zom’s nearly on us! Ellie, through this door. Now slam it, Five! slams shut SAM YAO: You’ve done it! That zom’s looking very frustrated. I mean, well, I think it is. It’s kind of hard to read the expressions on an undead human-tree hybrid. So uh, what’s it like in there, guys? I’ve got no cam coverage. ELLIE MAXTED: Labs. A pretty evil vibe. Life-size model of a cockroach-human hybrid, for example. JODY MARSH: Ugh. It’s eyes are huge! I used to hate roaches, but Tom loves them, so I’ve been making an effort to be less judgmental. He kept a couple of pets when he was… you know. SAM YAO: How’s Tom getting on with Kytan and the Last Riders? JODY MARSH: Good, actually. He said it’s nice to do something useful that doesn’t involve killing people. And the Last Riders are very all or nothing. Total chaos or total loyalty, you know. Tom says he gets that. ELLIE MAXTED: He’d get on with Sage, then. That’s not a man who believes in half measures. Until we talked about the Edda, he’d only said one thing to me in the last month. “I suggest you tidy your room, Ellie. A tidy environment begets a tidy mind.” JODY MARSH: Uh, guys? Was that cockroach-human model thing in the center of the room last time you looked? squeals Oh no. That’s not half human, it’s half zombie! We have to get out of here. Through that door behind the centrifuge. Let’s go! growls SAM YAO: I’ve got you on cams, guys. You’ve pulled ahead of the cockroach zom. ELLIE MAXTED: Not by much, and we aren’t shaking it. JODY MARSH: I don’t suppose Colonel Sage gave you an insect-zombie hybrid killing device, did he? ELLIE MAXTED: Well, actually - SAM YAO: He did give you an insect-zombie hybrid killing device. Wow. ELLIE MAXTED: It’s more of an “in case of dire emergency” explosive device? Actually, it’s a grenade. JODY MARSH: Handy! You take it, Five. You’re the best at softball. Throw it now! zombie splatters ELLIE MAXTED: laughs You did it, Five! It went off right as it hit the zom. There’s no way it survived that. creak and rumble SAM YAO: Uh… guys. What’s that sound? JODY MARSH: Oh no. Sam, you said the cliff was unstable. We have to run. caves in JODY MARSH: We’re okay, Sam. We’re clear of the cave-in. If there was anything left of that zom, it’s buried under two tons of granite. ELLIE MAXTED: It’s also opened a new tunnel mouth in the mountain. Look, daylight! We can use that when we leave with the Edda. Now I can put a positive spin on my “unauthorized use of a high explosive in the field” report. Sage is very big on those. SAM YAO: You know, if he’s such a pain to work with, you can always come back to Abel. I mean, he sounds - JODY MARSH: Unfun? SAM YAO: Yeah. Unfun to the extreme. ELLIE MAXTED: Oh God, yeah. He’s a nightmare. “Rules are there for a reason, Miss Maxted. I don’t care how compelling The Journal of Modern Anthropology is, lights out means lights out." But here’s the thing. What he does works. I might find him irritating as hell, but he’s helped people turn their lives around in the middle of an apocalypse. Look what he’s done for Peter. I’ve seen him smile more in the weeks he’s been helping Sage set up a fitness program than in the entire time I’ve known him. SAM YAO: Yeah. So you’re staying put. ELLIE MAXTED: For now. This Sage-Abel alliance is a great thing, and I’m going to do what I can to make sure it works. SAM YAO: Right. You’re close to the bibliotarium. Any sign of uh, like uh, bibliotares? JODY MARSH: Let me turn my torch on. switch clicks Oh. SAM YAO: Another rock fall? JODY MARSH: The rock’s melted. It’s that weird red color you get from a burn cube. SAM YAO: Oh bugger. I think… sighs Yep. You’re basically under Mount Seneca settlement now. The one that blew itself up with burn cubes. ELLIE MAXTED: So the Edda of the Wakened Warrior is buried under a mountain in the blast radius of a highly toxic and volatile device? SAM YAO: Mm, yeah. Codex Artefact Night-Vision Goggles Thank goodness you found these high-tech night-vision goggles when you did! The only thing worse than having to confront the existential horror of the Glass Protocol’s experiments is having to confront them in pitch darkness. Category:Mission Category:Season Seven